Read Around the World. Mexico

This is an award-winning debut novel set in Piedras Negras, near the Texas-Mexico border, during the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, by Mexican teacher-come-author Laura Esquivel. The book is divided into 12 monthly installments or chapters each featuring its own recipe.

The story centres around the de la Garza family of women. Tita is madly in love with her sweetheart Pedro but their marriage is forbidden by her mother as tradition dictates that as the youngest daughter she stay home and care for her mother. Pedro marries her sister Rosaura instead, to be near to Tita, and sets into play a series of love triangles, rivalry, sexual tension and drama. Tita throws her heartbreak and frustration into cooking, her sensual dishes taking on magical properties. Her sister Gertrudis makes a mad dash for freedom and shapes her own destiny becoming a kickass woman. The kind and caring Dr John Brown enters the story and offers Tita a chance to escape the oppression of Mamá Elena and the awkward situation she is trapped in. Tita finds herself torn between a long-standing passion and the chance for a more respectful, selfless form of love.

I found this an enjoyable easy read. The culinary descriptions and magical realism woven in made it vivid and colourful. I found Pedro a very shallow and weak hero and was disappointed in the ending. There were also some issues around consent that were glossed over and portrayed in a positive light. Despite this it was an entertaining read. ( )

I know this book is hugely popular, but it just didn't excite me. I loved the idea that each chapter is governed by the cooking and realisation of a particular dish. The plot line was promising- a young woman, condemned not to marry because she must look after her mother for life, falls in love with the man who marries her sister so he can keep close to the woman he really loves....

In the end, it depended a great deal on magic realism. I don't do magic realism. Not at all. I couldn't wait to finish this book. ( )

Hyperbole and a sort of spiritualism that is not part of our culture. Are these real recipes? ( )

Like water For Chocolate is a classic! Many know it for the film - watch the film too as it is one of the best book to film adaptations ever done (and probably because the filmmaker was married to the author at the time).

Here we're introduced to the De La Cruz family consisting of Mama Elena and her three daughters Rosara, Gertrudis, and Tita, head cook Nacha, and later on, house maid Chencha.

Tita at a young age attracts the attention of Pedro, who is madly in love with her and wants to marry her. As Tita is the last child born of Mama Elena since her father died after hearing unsettling news about his family she is forced to carry the curse of her mother's family - to live as her mother's caretaker until she dies and never marry. Mama Elena orchestrates Pedro marrying Rosara, whom he claims is to be near her. This spawns a lifetime of sneaking and freaking for them trying to be together intertwined with the lives of the sisters. Tita eventually breaks free of Mama Elena's grip and falls for another man who intends to marry her. After that, Tita's on the warpath to protect her niece Esparanza, whom her sister has vowed to bestow the same family curse upon her as she can't have any more kids.

The story is beautifully crafted under Tita's role as head ranch cook, a job she inherited the day of her sister's marriage. The way the recipes are introduced and the circumstances around each dish is a stroke of genius.

Read this one, you won't be bored. ( )

When I read this as a teenager I was bewitched. But reading it now almost 25 years later I have a very different opinion. I loved the magical realism but not the main love story or the two lovers. Rosaura's life I found the saddest of all. But Gertrudis' adventures would make a more compelling book. ( )